Discusses the way the mass media treats social problems, its contribution to causing and curing social problems, and its use by concerned organisations and groups wishing to act to reduce social problems. It brings together a wide range of topics including racism, sexism, poverty, violence, pornography, the educational disadvantaged, and crime and justice.
Is violence on the streets caused by violence in video games? Does cyber-bullying lead to an increase in suicide rates? Are teens promiscuous because of Teen Mom? As Karen Sternheimer clearly demonstrates, popular culture is an easy scapegoat for many of society's problems, but it is almost always the wrong answer. Now in its second edition, Connecting Social Problems and Popular Culture goes beyond the news-grabbing headlines claiming that popular culture is public enemy number one to consider what really causes the social problems we are most concerned about. The sobering fact is that a "media made them do it" explanation fails to illuminate the roots of social problems like poverty, violence, and environmental degradation. Sternheimer's analysis deftly illustrates how welfare "reform," a two-tiered health care system, and other difficult systemic issues have far more to do with our contemporary social problems than Grand Theft Auto or Facebook. The fully-revised new edition features recent moral panics—think sexting and cyberbullying—and an entirely new chapter exploring social media. Expanded discussion of how we understand society's problems as social constructions without disregarding empirical evidence, as well as the cultural and structural issues underlying those ills, allows students to stretch their sociological imaginations.
From TV to smartphone apps to movies to newspapers, mass media are nearly omnipresent in contemporary life and act as a powerful social institution. In this introduction to media sociology, Lindner and Barnard encourage readers to think critically about the power of big media companies, state-media relations, new developments in journalism, representations of race, class, gender, and sexuality in media, and what social media may or may not be doing to our brains, among other topics. Each chapter explores pressing questions about media by carefully excavating the results of classic and contemporary social scientific studies. The authors bring these findings to life with anecdotes and examples ripped from headlines and social media newsfeeds. By synthesizing research on new media and traditional media, entertainment media and news, quantitative and qualitative studies, All Media Are Social offers a succinct and accessibly-written analysis of both enduring patterns and some of the newest developments in mass media. With strong emphases on theory and methods, Lindner and Barnard provide students and general readers alike with the tools to better understand the ever-changing media landscape.
The media provide access to and construct social problems for large numbers of audiences throughout the world and in turn themselves have become a social problem in view of their multiple and complex effects, many negative. The media have been blamed by a wide spectrum of theorists and critics for promoting violence and sexism, racism, homophobia, ageism, and other oppressive social phenomena. Social problems connected with the media also involve allegedly harmful media influence on children and youth; pornography and the degradation of women and sexuality; advertising manipulation; and the promotion of excessive consumerism and materialism.
Provides a comparative perspective on the state of social problems and deviance in a variety of societies around the world. This book explores the theory of the weakness of the strong, in other words, strong or wealthy nations may have greater vulnerability to some social problems than less developed or affluent societies.
This volume focuses on media and social movements. Contributing authors draw on cases as diverse as the Harry Potter Alliance to youth oriented, non-profit educational organizations to systematically assess how media environments, systems, and usage affect collective action in the 21st Century.
The global high-tech economy has generated a technological and scientific productive miracle. But along with the miracle has come problems. Social Problems in Global Perspective focuses on some of these problems, including family decline, divorce and single parenting; the gender war- with men and women distrustful and threatened by one another in the workplace, the home, and the bedroom- the moral malaise created by science and religion, the media, and morality. This book presents detailed chapters on the high-tech economy, religious fundamentalism, terrorism, and ethnic conflicts. It also includes chapters on homosexuality and AIDS, the world population explosion, and pop culture.
With an engaging writing style that has made it a popular choice at both 2- and 4-year schools, the Third Edition of Anna Leon-Guerrero’s Social Problems textbook clearly presents contemporary social problems and addresses their consequences while emphasizing community involvement by both individuals and groups to achieve real solutions. With an overarching focus on social inequalities, this proven text provides a platform for discussion that encourages critical thinking through compelling illustrations, boxed features, learning checks, discussion questions, and online learning tools, all designed to inspire hope rather than simply present a disheartening parade of maladies.
A landmark insider’s tour of how social media affects our decision-making and shapes our world in ways both useful and dangerous, with critical insights into the social media trends of the 2020 election and beyond “The book might be described as prophetic. . . . At least two of Aral’s three predictions have come to fruition.”—New York NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY WIRED • LONGLISTED FOR THE PORCHLIGHT BUSINESS BOOK AWARD Social media connected the world—and gave rise to fake news and increasing polarization. It is paramount, MIT professor Sinan Aral says, that we recognize the outsize effect social media has on us—on our politics, our economy, and even our personal health—in order to steer today’s social technology toward its great promise while avoiding the ways it can pull us apart. Drawing on decades of his own research and business experience, Aral goes under the hood of the most powerful social networks to tackle the critical question of just how much social media actually shapes our choices, for better or worse. He shows how the tech behind social media offers the same set of behavior influencing levers to everyone who hopes to change the way we think and act—from Russian hackers to brand marketers—which is why its consequences affect everything from elections to business, dating to health. Along the way, he covers a wide array of topics, including how network effects fuel Twitter’s and Facebook’s massive growth, the neuroscience of how social media affects our brains, the real consequences of fake news, the power of social ratings, and the impact of social media on our kids. In mapping out strategies for being more thoughtful consumers of social media, The Hype Machine offers the definitive guide to understanding and harnessing for good the technology that has redefined our world overnight.
The new second edition of this distinctive and widely adopted textbook brings into the classroom an overview of how images of social problems can shape not only public policy and social services, but also the ways in which we make sense of ourselves and others. It introduces two primary changes. First, some attention is devoted to the "new social movements" that emphasize social change through identity transformation rather than through structural change. Second, the text now also looks more closely at the importance of emotions in constructing public consciousness of social problems.When the first edition was published, Teaching Sociology noted, "Loseke does a superb job explaining the relationship between sociology and social problems in a text that is very well research and engaging, yet with tremendous attention to detail and accuracy... [W]ould provide a solid base for any social problems class." Contemporary Sociology wrote that the book is "engagingly well written in a personal, unpretentious style, and well informed by the author's knowledge of the professional literature."
